I Can't Stop Cheating on My Boyfriend

I love him, but I can't stay faithful. What do I do?

Hi, I'm in a three-year-old relationship with my guy. Everything goes well— families, friends, relatives. But I have this one big problem. I'm cheating on him. OK, I love him, but it's also easy for me to fall for anyone else, especially when they show me that they want me too. I love my guy, but it's hard for me to be faithful. What to do? Please help. Thanks.

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What to do? You know what you should do: Stop cheating. But how? By recommitting yourself to this guy? Or by finding someone else?

You say it's easy to find fall for guys, "especially when they show me that they wanted me too." And that's a part of an affair's thrill for anyone, isn't it? We all crave validation. It feels great to be wanted. But there are limits. It sounds like you're getting hooked on this naughty habit and it's interfering with your life.

Sometimes, people create an endless cycle of affirmation and self-destruction for themselves: An affair makes you feel good when you're with the other guy. But then you see your partner and it makes you feel awful again. How are you going to feel good again? You find another guy to bolster your ego and make you feel desirable… And then you go home and feel awful about what you've done. To break the cycle, you need to find a way to feel worthy when you're alone with your thoughts, so you don't need to be desired so badly.

That probably begins with doing fewer things that you know, in your heart, are wrong. If you stop cheating, you might save your relationship. And it will be the first step toward breaking this cycle and saving yourself.

In the immediate term, I think you should take the risk and tell your boyfriend that you've been cheating. It's been three years. You've betrayed his trust repeatedly — and, at the very least, you owe him the honesty now. If you don't tell him, you're just being selfish. You're not saving him some imagined hurt; you're making it likelier that you'll hurt him more later. Years from now, if he finds out from someone else — or you finally admit what you've done — he certainly won't thank you for sparing his feelings earlier; he'll just be crushed. And if you do sincerely want to be faithful, you're going to need his help.

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The big question is: Do you really love this guy, if you can't stop cheating on him? I wonder if you feel like you ought to be with him, more than you want to be together. If you know you shouldn't be together, don't hurt him any more than you have to. Stretching out a failing relationship by cheating is far worse than breaking up with him now.

I've been together with my boyfriend for almost three years now. When he was drunk, he asked me if I wanted to get engaged (not married, just engagement), and I said of course. The very next day, when I brought it up to have a real, sober conversation about it, he said that he had no idea why he would ever say something like that to me. How should I react?

In a man's massive arsenal of lame excuses, "I was drunk" is somehow both the most dubious and the most overused. But it's easy to see why. Compared to "Ha, I was just kidding," his "I blacked out and can't remember saying that" excuse is semi-reasonable, less offensive, and even less committal. If your guy had said, "I was just kidding," you'd be pissed because that would have meant that he didn't mean what he said. By saying he has no idea what you're talking about, he's neither confirming nor denying whether he wants to get married or not. Convenient.

That said, he might actually be telling the truth. Sometimes, people do get black-out drunk, say things, and forget them. But it's much more likely he blurted it out and regretted it. Why? Maybe he wishes he hadn't brought it up because he'd prefer to propose when the room isn't spinning. Maybe he was just feeling drunk and warm and fuzzy, and blurted it out without really thinking it through. Maybe he's just plain scared and nervous. Who knows?

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How do you react? Shrug off the drunken question, because you might not get to the bottom of things anyway. Instead, focus on what does matter: your relationship. It's been three years. If you'd like to get married, or even if you're not sure and you just want to talk out both your feelings and his, have a conversation about where you see the relationship going. Say, "Hey, I know you were drunk the other night, but it got me thinking. We've been dating for three years and I'm trying to figure out where I want to be three years from now. I'd like to be married. How are you feeling?" Just make sure he's sober first.

I don't know how to tell my friends I've been dating a much older guy. I'm 22, he's 58. I have never ever dated anyone before. And they all simply assume I would never date anyone — like they have kind of pity feelings [for] me because I am never dating anyone. However I have been in a relationship with this amazing, muuuuch older guy for almost two years now, and I feel kind of scared they will totally hate me for it because it's a rather big age gap. So how do I tell my friends I am seeing this guy without sounding like I'm the next playboy girl?

Your friends won't hate you. But if they care about you, they're going to have a lot of questions. (So do I!) And some of them may be very worried about you.

For you, I think the trick is to remember that, even if your friends are skeptical or critical of your relationship, it doesn't mean they're going to stop liking you. They may not approve of your boyfriend, but that doesn't mean that they're going to abandon you.

They have good reason to be worried — and it isn't just that this guy is 36 years older than you, your first boyfriend, and that you started dating him when you were 20 and he was 56. That's plenty, and that will be a lot for your friends to process. But what will color all of their reactions is this: You kept him secret from them for the entirety of your two-year relationship.

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Regardless of age, hiding a boyfriend is a fluorescent, billboard-size warning sign. They're going to wonder why — and they're going to wonder about his reasons for keeping it secret too — so you should think carefully about your answer.

How do you tell them without sounding like one of Hef's bunnies? Take your time. Don't rush it. And don't expect the conversation to move quickly. They're going to have a lot of questions. Consider those questions carefully and answer them truthfully because they're coming from your friends. If you brush off your friends' concerns or bristle with defensiveness, they're going to think that you haven't thought this through. And they're certainly going to wonder why you decided to be with someone you haven't integrated into the rest of your life.

It sounds like you have good reasons for being with this man; your friends need to hear every single one of them — probably more than once.

Do you have a question for Logan about sex or relationships? Ask him here.

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